


Mark of Shame

by thraxios



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Anxiety, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Romance, too much..... fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-09-01 11:20:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8622634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thraxios/pseuds/thraxios
Summary: Mahariel is absurdly insecure about her incomplete vallaslin--a stamp of immaturity and weakness, branded right across her forehead. Alistair helps with that. ;)





	

**Author's Note:**

> crossposted to tumblr over [here](http://ohmahariel.tumblr.com/post/153505125524/mark-of-shame)

Mahariel is lingering on the verge of sleep, her thoughts thick with both a haze of pleasure and the warm weight of the air around them, when Alistair decides to speak. “You know,” he breathes against her cheekbone, her ear twitching slightly as she starts back awake, “I’ve managed to lay my eyes upon almost every inch of you, top to bottom. And yet…” (Here, he runs his hand over the curve of her hip, fingers flexing slightly as he kisses her cheek.) “Somehow, I was privy to the way your ass meets the tops of your thighs before I’ve even seen the whole of your face.”

“There isn’t much to see, Alistair,” she purrs, snuggling into his grip, eyes fluttering closed in an attempt to chase after sleep. He chuckles wryly. “Love, by this point, I’d give the hair off my head to see any part of you. And besides, in what way are Dalish face tattoos _un_ interesting?”

“Dalish anything is always uninteresting. You should know that by now,” she replies, turning to face him. Her thick hair frames her face, dark and full bangs obscuring her forehead from view. The small bit of ink that runs up from underneath her left eye and disappears into that impenetrable wall of hair is simply tantalizing.

“Well, then, it should be fine either way for me to see that beautiful brow of yours,” he says, raising his hand up toward her face. With a speed that betrays her facade of lazy sleepiness, she suddenly grips his wrist, holding it in place.

Her body is then still against his—rigid, even. Cautious and curious, he waits for her response, his eyes searching her blank face in the dark. She meets his gaze resolutely. “Mahariel?” he asks after a slow moment of silence.

She inhales, and then lets out that nervous fake giggle she has when he’s accidentally poked at something vulnerable. Fuck.

“I need a moment, ok?” she whispers, and his heart swells a little bit. Just half a year ago, she would’ve harshly laughed him off, deflecting attention from her insecurities by picking at his own. Half a year ago, she would’ve sooner kicked him out of her tent in nothing but his knickers than let him see her weaknesses.

“Um, ok, yeah, sure,” he mumbles back, working his hand out of her grip. She relents with only a little resistance, and he rests it on her back, before sliding it up the nape of her neck. He pulls her head down close to him, shifting and allowing her to bury her face in his chest, his arms now coming up around her to hold her against him in a squeezing hug.

“Take as much time as you need,” he murmurs into her hair. “Here, I mean,” he awkwardly tacks on, nuzzling his face against the top of her head. She gives a small nod, breathing him in deep.

“This whole trust and disclosure thing is, well, new, to me,” she mutters into his chest, but he knows (Maker, does he know). “Take your time,” he repeats.

The minutes tick on by, punctuated only by the sounds of their breathing and the soft crackle of the dying campfire outside the tent. “Um,” she finally begins, shifting back to look at him, “I think I should maybe give some background first.” He nods, “Sure, ok.”

“So, how much do you know about Dalish tattoos?” she asks.

“Well, they’re rather pretty, aren’t they?” He answers. “But beyond that, I haven’t the faintest clue about them. Something about elven gods, I’m sure?”

She chokes out a laugh. “When _isn’t_ it about the elven gods, I wonder. Yes, well, for the Dalish, the tattoos— _vallaslin_ —are a sign of maturity. The ritual is absurdly long, of course. You must sit in absolute silence and contemplation for hours on end while some hack with a magicked needle stabs at your face over and over again. Andraste’s tits, it’s a pain. Quite literally.”

“Contemplating… what, exactly? How to best unlodge a stick from a Dalish ass?” Alistair asks. Mahariel can’t help but laugh before continuing. “No no, you contemplate the Dalish ways. Our philosophies, our culture, and especially our religion. The ritual doubly functions as both a coming of age and as a rite of devotion to a deity of the elven pantheon. Those who make it through the ceremony without expressing a single hint of pain are rewelcomed into the clan as an adult. Maybe not unlike a templar’s vigil, if you’d like a human comparison.” Alistair nods thoughtfully.

She continues, “For my own _vallaslin_ , I picked the mark of Elgar’nan, the god of—”

“Vengeance,” Alistair interrupts, cutting her off and thinking back to the theology lessons that had filled their monotonous trudges along Fereldan trails. “I remember, you said he was… a child of the sun and the earth, or something along those lines, right?”

She grins. “Looks like your chantry boy study skills have served you well. Yes, the patron deity of revenge. I had a lot to be angry about then: my mother, for leaving me, the bastards who _made_ her leave, and, of course, shemlen. And…” Here, she drifts off, gaze slipping to the side, refusing to make eye contact. “And myself, too. For not being good enough. Never enough,” she admits sheepishly. “So, when it was time, Elgar’nan and his vengeance felt natural to me.”

Alistair glances quickly at the litany of horizontal scars that run up and down the insides of her forearms. He rests his hand over her own, interlacing their fingers as his thumb starts to rub rhythmic circles into her skin.

“The pain, I could deal with. Ha,” she barks, lifting her arm and pointedly staring at the scars, “physical pain was never an issue. But my thoughts… The _vallaslin_ ritual is as much an exercise in meditation as in physical restraint. You retreat back into your heart to search your deepest emotions. The anger,” ( _the hurt_ , Alistair thinks to himself, sadly), “was overwhelming, to the point where I wept—Maker, like I was still but a babe. And, though I made no noise, the Keeper saw my weakness all the same. The whole thing was called off, and I was made to walk around our camp with my ineptitude branded on my face for the world to see and mock.”

She then sits up, the blanket slipping down over her shoulders. She raises her free hand to her face, and, after a moment’s hesitation, slides it up under her bangs, holding them back to reveal the painted skin underneath.

His breath catches in his throat. Solid, jagged strokes of dark, dark red decorate the left half of her forehead, carving thorny lines into her brow. Asymmetrical blotches fill in parts of what he thinks looks like a preliminary outline, but even to his human eyes, it is clear that the job was never finished. The ink is striking where it should be supplementary—it disfigures where it should accentuate. He realizes he’s been staring when she lets her hair down again. “Ugly, I know. Embarrassing, too,” she admits, her voice soft and rare with shame. “Elves think I’m a fool, and humans think I’m—well, an elf.”

“Hey,” he starts, “Never. I mean, yes, you’re an elf, of course. But—you know—damn, I’m horrible at this sort of thing. I just…” He silently curses himself for his awkwardness. “Listen,” he says, before sitting up with her and bringing his hands to rest on the sides of her head. He can feel her trembling underneath his touch; she’s been so brave tonight. He holds her bangs to the side, once again revealing the ink underneath, and leans in, firmly pressing his lips against the unfinished brambles that run above her left eyebrow.

He takes his time, lingering until her shaking subsides, and then he litters the surrounding area with as many kisses as he can muster. “You are neither a fool,” _kiss_ , “nor are you ugly,” _kiss_ , “You are the most brilliant,” _kiss_ , “and beautiful,” _kiss_ , “girl I’ve ever met, and I am unspeakably lucky to have crossed paths with you.”

She smiles hesitantly under his attentions, even chuckles a little. “Keep going on like that and I will be far from the biggest fool in this army,” she teases, though she secretly relishes the validation.

“You can laugh at me all you like, but no amount of mockery will ever dissuade me from loving you as you are, as fiercely as I do,” Alistair replies in all seriousness, pausing in his ministrations to look her intently in the eye. She colors under him (she can’t recall the last time anyone else made her blush like that), and takes the opportunity to shut him up by surging in for a kiss of her own, planting her mouth over his.

“I love you too, you royal bastard,” she mutters after they collapse back onto the makeshift bed. Once more, he runs his fingers across the tattoo hidden under her bangs, tips tracing the lines’ winding paths over and across her forehead. “I like it,” he says at last, his thumb following the last branch to where it ends just beneath her eye. She looks at him with skepticism.

“No, I really mean it. It isn’t conventional, but since when have we—has this—ever been conventional?” He gestures vaguely at the air around them. “Andraste’s flaming sword, we’re fighting the end of the world here, and our army is made up whatever remnants of civilization we can gather up and scrape together. Instead of thinking of it as incomplete, maybe it means something else, like… you’re part of a bigger whole.”

She raises her eyebrows at him. “As in…?” she asks.

“What I mean is, you’re a part of the Grey Wardens, a part of the Dalish, a part of this army, a part of—of _us_. And a damn important part, at that. As for the immaturity thing—fuck what the other elves think. So what? We’re all works in progress, aren’t we? Maybe you’re just a little less pompous for openly admitting it.

“And, anyway, the simplest reason I like it is that it’s beautiful. Not pretty, no, far from it. But it’s engaging and complex and thought-provoking in a way that few other tattoos are,” he finishes.

“Hmm,” she ponders, “you know, you’re surprisingly literary about it all for a man who claims he doesn’t like to read.”

“Reading is hard, but looking at you is easy. Seems simple enough to me,” he says with a chuckle.

She brushes her bangs to the side, tucking them behind her right ear so that her tattoo on the left is only slightly obscured. Her face feels strangely naked. “Well? What do you think? Could be a new look for me,” she says, unused to having her brow exposed.

He flips them over so that she’s lying underneath him, his arms braced on either side of her shoulders. “Breathtaking,” he says, his voice low and warm as he looks her over, her bangs askew and face still slightly flushed from earlier.

He dips his head to the crook of her neck, so thankful, so proud, as he drags his lips across the spot of skin right where her ear meets her jaw. Her little gasps and breaths fade into the sounds of the wind picking up outside, small slivers of her face and brow melting into the darkness as the campfire’s last embers finally burn out.

**Author's Note:**

> idk if i characterized alistair accurately here, pls lemme know what yall think. idk if he's awkward enough throughout this whole encounter lol :-/ but at the same time i wanted to show development from where he is at the start of the game so???? who knows


End file.
